Providing Economic Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation in an Emerging Bioregional Context

Abstract

"Many protected areas are not successfully conserving biodiversity, often despite adequate management within their borders. Changes in land use outside protected areas can alter ecological function inside protected areas and result in biodiversity loss given that protected areas are almost always parts of larger ecosystems. Economic incentives are seen as one of the most promising avenues to influence conservation goals. This paper deals with enabling these in the now commonly accepted notion of bioregional landscape management. We suggest a holistic framework to help understand where and how such incentives may function. We then discuss a range of desired incentives, and relate as many of these as possible to potential underlying institutional changes. Without going into country-specific details, several southern African examples are used, all the while relating both principles and examples to bioregionalism. We conclude that incentives for bioregional conservation in southern Africa are far more likely to succeed if key institutions can be introduced."